


Substitution

by Anonymous



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Infidelity, Multi, POV Character of Color, POV Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-08-06
Updated: 2008-08-06
Packaged: 2017-11-06 07:04:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/416097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not Tory, <i>Dee</i>.</p><p>Dee, redefined by fate, redefining herself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Substitution

**Author's Note:**

> I don't consider this really finished, folks. It's unpolished and rough and unbeta'd, but I don't have any impetus to work on it any more - I wanted there to be more, like the titular 'substitution' sends ripples out into continuity that distort S4 more and more, but I got distracted by another bunny and when I got back, it seemed I had stopped at a natural ending point without really meaning to do so. *shrugs*

Lee does not come back to their quarters that night. Dee can count on one hand all the places where he mightbe, but does not go looking. Wherever he is, it will hurt to see him there.

The gym, pounding at the punching bag until his knuckles bleed, no tape, no gloves.

The showers, the locker room. The first, to scald him with more than one ration of hot water, because  _Galactica_  has one less pilot for whom to budget. The other, because he might see  _her_  locker and break. Might go through  _her_  things, touching tangible memories of someone who did not leave a corpse.

The bar, drinking in silence in a corner until he can pretend that his vision is blurred from alcohol instead of tears. The least likely, as that’s where he might run into Sam. A perverse part of her hopes for this possibility, wants him to come home with bruises that remind him that it’s  _not his place_  to grieve so deeply for someone that’s not his  _own_  wife.

(She would never do that herself. She would  _never_. But she can let a corner of herself hope that someone does it for her.)

Maybe,  _maybe_  the hangar deck. The rumor mill had since told her six different stories of her husband’s condition when he’d landed, ranging from catatonia to raving lunacy. Dee hadn’t been able to see him herself until half an hour later, when Tigh looked up and finally –  _finally_  – ordered her out.

It was all very well and good for the Admiral to rush out of the CIC after the death of an  _almost-but-not-quite_  daughter-in-law died, but Dee stayed at her station.

She’d found Lee in the pilot’s ready room, crumpled in one of the chairs like a puppet without strings, staring ahead at the blank screen. Duty rosters strewn at his feet. Dee gathered up the pages carefully and set them on the podium, then sat beside him.

“Lee.” He startled, and stared at her, and Dee realized that she was sitting in  _her_  seat. “Let’s go, Lee.” He nodded, eyes red and damp.

She took him home, stripped off his flight suit, and in the tangle of limbs this required, found herself suddenly enveloped by his arms. His breath was hot on her face, and she could feel the bones in her shoulder grinding under his hands.  _What?_

“Dee,” he whispered, voice broken, but his eyes were looking  _through_  her.  _No._  She dropped her eyes and escaped to the other side of the room. He made a strangled noise, but she didn’t turn, just stared at the bulkhead, her own eyes welling up. The ghost of a caress on her shoulder, then he was gone, the hatch swinging shut with a clang. Dee doesn’t go after him.

The worst part is, Dee used to  _like_  Starbuck. She’s never hated anyone more for dying. Even Billy.

She waits for Lee to come home.

***

Anastasia Dualla has a standing appointment on Colonial One, once a month, where she has lunch with the President and her new aide, Tory. Even after so long, Dee still thinks of Tory as  _new_. She can’t help it, but she doesn’t let it show, either. She’s just surprised that Roslin still asks,  _smiling_ , “Same time next month?” each time she leaves for Galactica. Even after Billy, after New Caprica, Roslin still asks. A semblance of routine, of normalcy, of companionship bridging the gulf between the too-few ships.

Dee trades Galactica gossip for civilian gossip, and gives Adama a report when she returns. Lee occasionally joined them, and they would have dinner together. Like  _family_. Not so often, anymore, and the meals taste like ash.

***

The fleet is heading towards the Ionian Nebula, and Dee is distracted from what Roslin’s saying.

“-Are you all right?” Tory asks, and Dee snaps back to attention, smiling in apology.

“I’m sorry, this song is pretty, but the reception is terrible. Do you mind switching the station?” Dee says by way of explanation. The president pours too much sweetener into her tea. “I’ve just spend so much time on duty, listening for signals in static, it’s distracting. I’m sorry.”

Roslin exchanges puzzled glances with Tory. “What music?” Roslin’s voice is too gentle, and Dee feels something slip out of synch in her mind.

“It- it must be coming from a neighboring compartment. What were you saying, about the trial?” They let it drop, but the frown line between Roslin’s eyebrows doesn’t smooth out entirely. When Dee leaves, Roslin takes a moment to ask, in a quiet murmur, “How are you and Lee, Lieutenant?”

The use of her rank makes her bite back the practiced, smooth line she uses daily, and she averts her eyes. “It’s… okay. Rough, but-” Dee looks back up, taking a deep breath. “Who has it easy?”

Roslin nods, smiling compassionately, and hums a little in the back of her throat. “You’re absolutely right, Lieutenant. Just let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.”

Something tells Dee that if things with Lee don’t get better soon – if, Gods forbid, they get  _worse_  – she can leave  _Galactica_  and find a job on Colonial One. Something in her gut warms at the thought.  _Not too shabby for a Sagittaron._  But she pushes aside that thought, feeling it ring hollow and false.

“Same time next week, Lieutenant?” Roslin asks, louder and brighter.

“Of course, Madam President.”

***

On the first day of the trial, she hears Tigh fall apart on the stand over the wireless broadcast. No one in the CIC is supposed to be listening, but she is anyway, despite the Admiral’s orders against “getting distracted by the inevitable.”

Tigh slurs something about music, and she feels a cold shock, but pulls herself together to monitor the CAP chatter anyway.

 _Lee should be out there_, she thinks.

***

Lee comes home that night and something’s different. He shucks off his dress blues slowly, and Dee watches the muscles in his back bunch and move beneath his tanks. She gets up to help him, pulling the jacket off his arms.

There are small, darker patches on his collar where his points ought to be.

The floor drops away.

“Lee,” she whispers.

“I am no longer an officer in the Colonial Fleet.” He states this mechanically, like soldier reciting the rules and regs, not like a man who’s just tipped her worldview sideways.

She hangs his uniform neatly and stows it away in the closet, like he’ll be using it again the next day.

He doesn’t.

The next morning, he puts on a  _suit_. Something slow and angry uncoils in her gut.  _This isn’t right_ , she  _knows_  it, but bites her tongue anyway. This  _can’t_  be permanent. People left the Galactica to be civvies on New Caprica, and look how  _that_  turned out.

“Frak,” Dee says aloud to the empty room after he’s gone. She realizes she’s late to her duty shift. “Frak,  _frak_.”

***

She should have followed orders the day before, and should still be following them, but she’s listening to the trial again instead.

“Captain Apollo, do you remember that?” Roslin is saying softly.

Dee breaks a little inside.

Between trying to keep her composure and the damnable static breaking up the signal, she can barely hear the rest of the trial.

She hears  _enough_.

***

Dee stows her things in an empty locker and runs into Gaeta in the head. “You’d know where I could find a free rack, wouldn’t you.” It’s not a question. Between the two of them, they both know every bolt on the ship.

“Well, uh, for a decent room, you’ll have to wait for the trial to be over. Until then-”

“Yeah, I thought so. I guess I’ll rely on the generosity of pilots and deckhands.”  _Probably not the former._ She rubs her fingertips across her eyelids, suddenly tired. “Hold quarters for me when they’re free, willya?”

“Sure. Though I’m hoping you won’t need it.” He looks sad for her, and she shakes her head.

“Thanks, Felix.”

***

Cally tells her that Hardball’s old rack hasn’t been filled since she got bumped up, and Dee thanks her with relief and genuine gratitude. She strips down to her tanks behind the curtain and drops to the mattress, drained beyond exhaustion. Something intrudes on her thoughts when she starts to drift off.

“Gods, the  _same_  song?” Dee mutters aloud. When she peeks out, there’s no one there and she can’t spot anyone’s forgotten wireless.

It’s not a bad song, it’s just. She can’t  _hear_  it properly. The irritation jolts her upright and she pulls on her pants and shoes, suddenly restless though her body feels  _beaten_. She doesn’t even pull her hair back, but it doesn’t matter.

She goes to Joe’s bar, following the music.

***

It’s not that Dee hadn’t thought of it before, in her more vindictive moments. She’d stood next to Anders beside the boxing ring, and seen his body trembling with the same fury that wrenched her own guts into knots.

She’d noticed, calculatingly and coldly, that he was fairly attractive.

But she’d swallowed that down, and left.

Now, she’s getting déjà-vu, panting for breath in a flyboy’s rack as Anders runs a rough palm up the inside of her knee, pressing her down.  _How did we get from Joe’s to here?_  She thinks frantically, arching against him as his stubble burns the column of her neck. She tries to remember –  _did anyone see us?_  – but all is lost in the music that thrums in her blood.

He's rougher than Lee, of course. That doesn’t surprise her. What stuns her is how his cheekbone catches the light the same way at this angle, and that the noise he makes when she bites his shoulder is almost identical.  _Did Kara know?_ __

_Of course she did._ __

_No, no, she never. Not before Anders._ She’s sure of it; Lee had been honest with her, when they  _started_ dating.

Dee almost likes the idea that Starbuck isn’t so  _special_  anymore. Dee can do this, too. She can have them both.

 _Even Kara couldn’t keep them both at once, though_ , a small voice reminds her.

Anders does a practiced move, twisting them both so that she’s on top in the narrow bunk, and she digs in deep with her fingernails in his back so she doesn’t swing too far out and fall on the floor, curling her head against his neck so it doesn’t hit the top bunk. His hips surge beneath her in a familiar rhythm, and it’s too, too easy to muffle her moans in his skin.

“Frak,” he grunts between gritted teeth, his hands hard on her hips as he slams her down onto him once, twice, and he throws his head back in a silent scream. Privacy equals silence, in the crowded Fleet. She admires him for catching on so quickly, and rides out his last erratic thrusts, trying to follow him over the edge. She’s so  _close_ …

After a moment, he goes up on one elbow and reaches into the slick space between them and finds her clit. “Oh, Gods,” she gasps, grinding down on his hand, clenching around his half-hard cock. “Sam,” she says, and their eyes meet. Something crackles between them, running heat down her spine before the music crashes into her skull and a red haze obscures her sight.

He’s not  _quite_  gentle, after, but she thinks she likes that. It’s a nice contrast to feel Sam work her jaw open with his thumbs while kissing her, deep and wet and slow. Not like Lee, whose post-coital routine is to brush his lips and fingers across her skin – shoulders, stomach, wrists – in feathery touches that send aftershocks through her limbs.  _Both are nice_ , Dee reflects, and she can’t grudge Starbuck’s indecision, now that it’s not there anymore, a blade cutting everyone into pieces.

***

“What  _is_  that song?” Sam mutters into the fabric of his tanks as he pulls them on.

Dee stills, one boot in her hand. “You hear it, too?”

“Gods, how could I miss it?”

Dee feels her face stretch, and it takes her a second to realize she’s smiling, broad and  _real_ , for the first time in  _forever_. “I thought I was going nuts for a while there,” she says. “No one else-”

And there’s pounding at the hatch, so Dee scrambles to get herself decent before the other Raptor pilots pile in, curious queries silenced when they spot her. She tangles her fingers together and looks at the floor, but not before she catches the mix of shock and alarm on their faces.

When the hatch is clear, she’s out without another word.

***

 _In for a cubit..._ , Dee sighs to herself, and tunes into the last day of the trial.

She’s glad Helo let her switch shifts, because she spends most of the morning curled in her rack, trying to remember how to breathe without feeling like she’s inhaled glass shards.

The man defending Gaius Baltar is a stranger. Strong, and impassioned – he was  _before_ , but this is still different. The opposite side of a coin.

Lee’s not her husband anymore, but some part of her is  _proud_ of him.

He’s still wrong.

She wishes he could be this man and not have frakked up their life together, but as soon as she thinks it, she knows it’s not possible. One had to happen for the other to exist.

That actually hurts worse than anything else he’s done to her.

***

Dee has to leave for duty before the verdict’s announced, but she’s not interested anymore. She hears Gaeta swearing, almost spitting mad in his little corner of the CIC, so she figures it out – she just doesn’t give a frak.

Then her world ends, three more times:

The power goes out when they reach the Nebula. The song floods her again until she’s stumbling blind down the corridors of Galactica. She remembers saying something about feedback and being ordered to see Cottle, but she didn’t ( _couldn’t?_ ) respond. She’s deaf to everything but the song.

Anders is waiting for her, with Tyrol. Tigh comes in behind her. And Dee  _knows_.

It’s almost an afterthought, one last cruel twist of Fate, to hear – when she returns to the CIC, determined to hold onto who she wants to be, same as Colonel Tigh – Starbuck’s voice on the comm. Dee looks at Tigh and sees the muscle in his jaw snap as he stares back,  _Don’t you dare frak this up_ clear in his gaze.

“Yes, sir,” she responds aloud to one of the Admiral’s orders, but she echoes it with a nod to Tigh.

It’s not like she has anything else to be.

 

_\- end -_

**Author's Note:**

> This is an old story; I am updating my archive here for completion. It has its flaws, but I'm not wholly unhappy with it.


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